Lots of palms

Recently we’ve been collecting lots of different palms from various sources; including Home Depot, our friendly local nursery, the free plant place and also from our own land!

We planted the Bismarkia we bought in a prime spot in front of the house next to the driveway. We chose this spot because Bismarkias look amazing when they are mature. It will be a while though since we only bought a small one. They are very expensive and we didn’t want to shell out hundreds of dollars on something that might die when it was transplanted!

At the same time we also bought an interesting looking spindle palm and planted it up front. Directly in front of the house we planted a pair of small robellini palms in what used to be the old driveway. Hopefully the new topsoil I spread out there will help them grow.

Home Depot had some nice looking Arecas, so we got one and planted it next to the patio behind the house. This clumping palm should grow nice and bushy and act as a screen for the patio.

Our palm haul from the free plant place included 2 MacArthurs, a Washingtonia, a Fiji and a Sabal. The MacArthurs are now in nice pots on our patio. The other 3 are still in their original pots. We will wait for them to grow a bit more before planting them.

Last, but not least, I uncovered a small ‘forest’ of about 20 King palms (ranging in height from 2ft to 12ft) that have been happily growing near our giant mature King palm. We wanted one nearer the house, so I picked one of the best looking 6ft specimens, dug it up and moved it. Fingers crossed it will survive the upheaval!

Great job with the palm trees! We had our share of palms when we lived in Florida. We had 3-Stem Robellini palms that looked great! Also enjoyed Queen Palms. Another variety you may consider is the Royal Palm (Palma Real) which is native and highly coveted by some.

Hi Rosa, thanks! We bought the Bismarkia at the small plant place on the 115 near Don Raul’s restaurant on the edge of Rincón. We paid $50 for it, which seemed a lot but we had heard they were expensive. Maybe we should have haggled with her over the price, but being English that’s not something I’m very comfortable doing! 🙂
Sally, the lady who runs the place is very friendly. If you’re interested she did have another Bismarkia that was about the same height as ours (32 inches) but was a bit younger.

Hi Ham, thanks! Yeah, we like Royal Palms too. There are some large ones across the valley from our house, but we’ve not got any ourselves (yet).
I’m still waiting for the day that someone opens a ‘proper’ curry house on the island. I may be waiting some time… 😦